Cauvery -The tale of two states

Cauvery as a river starts from Karnataka Kodagu Malai and runs towards the Bay of Bengal. Its course covers the KSR dam and Kabini dam and on reaching Tamilnadu it enters a point called Billikundalu. It is only in Tamilnadu that the river Cauvery covers more distance and splits into various sub-branches. This is the main reason why Tamilnadu demands more control on Cauvery.Five crore people in the southern part of Tamilnadu depend on the Cauvery for livelihood purposes and more than 24 lakh hectares of land is dependent on the Cauvery river in Tamilnadu for irrigation.

                 

Major international committees set up for solving international river disputes have declared that greater control over a river should be provided to the region where the river has more presence geographically, rather than considering the origin of the river. For example, Sudan has more control over the Nile river since it is where the river Nile covers more distance. This may also be one of the reasons why the Supreme Court Order or the Cauvery Water Tribunal report will not be in favour of Karnataka. 

Cauvery problem occurs when there is the shortage of rainfall for a season in both the states, hence this important factor should be taken into consideration while discussing farming solutions.
There are three major solutions suggested here which the Tamilnadu government can implement for solving this conflict to a considerable extent.

I. Setting up of desalination plants in Tamilnadu along all the coastal areas, which will massively reduce the use of river or lake water for consumption. In fact, Tamilnadu has the largest desalination plant in India at Chennai inNemeli, which produces about 100 MLD (Million Litres per day). However, it is just sufficient to satisfy South Chennai’s drinking water requirement alone. Hence separate budget has to be allocated by Tamilnadu government for the setting up, working and maintenance of more such desalination plants which will make Tamilnadu self-dependent for all future drinking water needs.  

 

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II. Removing the"Seemai karuvelai" plant (Biological name: ProsopisJuliflora):

This plant is absolutely useless except for its wood and will deplete the soil in which it is grown to a large extent by consuming more water from the land and as atmospheric moisture. The plant will bear no fruit which is human consumable. When cattle consume too much of the plant, they are affected due to the presence of a harmful particle in the seed called "Tunlin".

III. Construction of more check dams in large numbers:

 A single small check dam can meet the requirement equivalent of 10 villagers. The best example is Gujarat, which has more than 500 check dams and has unified the river at the inter-state level which has changed the scenario of the state from being water scarce to having surplus water. Such innovative methods have to be followed in Tamil Nadu as well to conserve existing water resources.In Chennai floods, Tamilnadu lost 7Tmcof water which ended up in Bay of Bengal, but until now the quantity of water released from Karnataka after endless chaos is only close to 9 Tmc.

Hope this information has helped you to understand the Cauvery river problem better.

Akshayaram Viswanathan
Jai hind